Korea

Sound of Nomad: Koryo Arirang starts with a diva of a tragic family history related to a history of migration. The rare archival footage re-animates her history reverberating with the current world crisis. This is a testimonial – a witness to injustice and tragedy, but it is also a declaration of survival – a survival that is not static but transformative – not brittle but fluid. The trains that displace, the deserts that separate from one harsh horizon –a historical limit– but within that limit, against it and across it are people, are a culture, not escaping but flourishing unofficially, with the affectionate majesty of a melody, a rhythm, an Arirang.

In-hi, a 28 year-old woman experienced paralysis in her upper body for no reason. Moreover accidents happened to her family incessantly. She regarded this as some kind of curse and visited Hae-kyung, the female shaman. In-hi found out that she is destined to be a shaman and fell into dilemma. Korean Shamans are the intermediaries between the living world and the spiritual world. They sometimes play a role as an advisor of life, sometimes as the cursed messenger of evil gods. They are a group of people who are usually despised by others, but they have been around for more than 5000 years, carrying the burden of the gift that god has bestowed upon them.

In Sorok-do where traveled by chance, we encountered an old woman, Lee Hang Sim, 78-years old, who was dragged into Sorok-do at the age of 4 by her parents because of Hanses’s disease. Pregnant after emancipation, she hid her pregnancy for 10 months for she was forbidden to give a birth. She couldn’t even scream in travail until cock crow in case she should get caught. It was all the bitter pain.